GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Cyril Ramaphosa: nothingman

“Once divided … nothing left to subtract… Some words when spoken … can’t be taken back… Walks on his own … with thoughts he can’t help thinking… Future’s above … but in the past he’s slow and sinking… Caught a bolt ‘a lightnin’ … cursed the day he let it go… Nothingman … ”



[Nothingman, Pearl Jam]

 When Cyril Ramaphosa was elected ANC deputy president at the party’s Mangaung conference in December 2012, it was touted as just the tonic President Jacob Zuma’s compromised administration needed.

“The return of the Chosen One, Cyril Ramaphosa,” wrote Ranjeni Munusamy for the Daily Maverick, in a story typical of this kind of enthusiasm.

“The return of Ramaphosa to the ANC leadership has been welcomed in many quarters and there is new hope that his presence might help to undo the corrosion and leadership weaknesses,” she wrote.

One could call it Ramathusiasm, a special kind of myopic optimism to which many in SA are susceptible.

Such an impact did Ramaphosa’s election make, Munusamy said, “Zuma will know that, now that the ANC has a much more worthy candidate for head of state, his chance of topping the ANC’s election ticket in 2014 is diminishing.”

Ramathusiasm is a powerful affliction.

Unsurprisingly, that never happened. And part of the reason is Ramaphosa himself. Whatever promise he embodied for those trapped inside the ANC’s universe and who are desperate for the party to save itself, never materialised. Quite the opposite: a total failure to deliver anything meaningful.

Silent and entirely complicit in the ANC government’s implosion, Ramaphosa never made so much as a ripple. True, he would sometimes parrot the generic issues many in the ANC identify — factionalism, corruption and so forth — but never in any way less vague or meaningless than his counterparts. And as for actual influence, Ramaphosa’s own words put paid to that — most of all, with regard to Zuma himself.

In an in-depth interview with Jeremy Maggs and eNCA just after his election, he set out his agenda. It is worth going through what Ramaphosa said in that interview for three reasons. First, because it is a good illustration of how the man spreads Ramathusiasm. Second, because SA debate tends to be ahistorical and rarely is the historical record vetted. Third, and most importantly, because it demonstrates that Zuma’s legacy is Ramaphosa’s too — he took complete ownership of it.

Ramaphosa was at pains to make it clear, he did not really want the job. “It’s not something that I willingly stepped into,” he said. He would say only that he was responding to the ANC’s call and that it was something he believed could not be ignored. He plays the card of reluctant hero as well as he does often.

Some were talking about a “salvation role”, Maggs said, “that in time you will bring legitimacy to an administration that is mired in controversy”.

“No, not at all,” said Ramaphosa in response, “people need to see us as a collective.” And with that sentiment, he offered up any right to disassociate himself from Zuma.

Then the taps opened. Maggs suggested Zuma was beleaguered (a mild enough description) but Ramaphosa was having none of it.

“I don’t see President Zuma as being beleaguered,” he said, “I see him as a very strong president. A president who has led from the front. What he has done that is most outstanding and prominent in my mind is delivering to the nation the National Development Plan [NDP].

“We have had President Mandela who delivered us to freedom, President Mbeki stabilised and President Zuma has actually delivered a blueprint for the future. A blueprint to 2030. Now, that is the leadership he has shown, leading from the front.”

What role would Ramaphosa play in the realisation of this plan, Maggs asked?

“I am also going to play a key role in helping that plan to be implemented.”

He identified infrastructure as the biggest short-term deliverable that the NDP could produce.

“I don’t think it is too ambitious,” Ramaphosa said. “It is doable because it has the levers that we can put our hands on and make sure that it is implemented and what that plan will spawn is economic growth, job creation, and it will also help in so far as economic empowerment is concerned.”

Maggs suggested Ramaphosa was going to be given a hard time, given how compromised ANC internal politics was, by corruption and infighting. Ramaphosa turned on the taps again.

“We need to go for renewal and to this end we have developed the decade of the cadre,” he said.

“The decade of the cadre also means that we have got to inculcate the most outstanding values and ethics amongst the members of the ANC. The education that they will be exposed to during this period is meant to chisel out precisely all those very bad tendencies.

“I know it is going to happen. We are going to get some of the best attributes coming through from our cadres, who will have total commitment to their service of SA.

“I believe we can do it.

“The transparency that you get in the ANC is second to none. And with that realisation I have the fullest confidence that the ANC has stepped up to the plate and is going to address all these problems.”

What about those who stood against Zuma — how would they be treated, Maggs asked.

If the taps were opened before, now Ramaphosa turned them to full flow. Listen to this:

“You know President Zuma is one of the few presidents that I know who has been able to work with people who he knows don’t support him entirely, and people who are saying we want regime change. He has been able, not only to invite them into his Cabinet but to even elevate them in his Cabinet. He is so politically mature that he is able to work with those people.”

There was more: “The sermon of unity will continue. The seeds were long planted. And President Zuma continues watering the tree of unity. And to prove that, he is going to keep those people who ran against him, [then] Deputy President [Kgalema] Motlanthe and the various other ministers. So there is no purge whatsoever that is in the offing.”

What about the economy, does the government know where it wants to intervene, Maggs asked.

Ramaphosa said the government should be allowed to intervene in the economy but at the same time, “It is a government that says we are going to encourage private enterprise to invest, to grow, and we are going to remove all the obstacles and hurdles that they often face.” He said, “This is a government that is very friendly towards business.”

Ramaphosa said one of his jobs was to travel the country and work with provincial leaders in the party to communicate the messages emanating from the conference. He said his “hands are going to be full”. He went into some detail about how well he and Zuma had worked together — “we had a fantastic time” — saying the president was always “only a phone call away”.

There were various other interviews Ramaphosa gave subsequent to his election. They all delivered the same kind of unregulated optimism. In a February 2013 interview, for example, he said it all boiled down to trust.

“Trust is going to be the glue that puts us all together in order to get us to move forward.”

It was put to him that Business Unity SA had pointed out that the ANC had come up with “thirty, forty, fifty diagnostics since 1994”, and that “we are great at drawing up plans but we are terrible at implementing them”.

His response: “We are now on the cusp of implementation. We are now on that point.”

When will the ANC implement the integrity commission, to ensure compromised members are dealt with?

“The president has insisted it needs to be attended to. So, watch this space.”

With regard to land reform, Ramaphosa said, “These things do take time and processes in government tend to move slow and they need to be speeded up.”

Asked about the violence that has come to define service delivery protests and the seeming inability of government to adequately address such problems, Ramaphosa said, “One of the key things that the ANC has committed itself to is to make sure that its own leaders, its own members, its own cadres, become closely connected to the communities they serve, and post-Mangaung we are going to see a new resurgence, a new commitment, by ANC leaders, ANC members, to make sure the needs of the community are met.”

Unemployment: “We are going to start seeing unemployment levels coming down.”

“So, I remain confident this country is on the move. It has a blueprint. It has the leadership, that is determined. It has a president who is leading in front and we are now going to make the state to be more and more capable moving forward.”

This was the Cyril Ramaphosa of December 2012: optimist, humble servant, focused on delivery, absolutely convinced of success. You can see why so many different constituencies liked him. What isn’t there to like? He had something for everyone.

At the same time, nothing to show for it all. One can argue that, as deputy president both of the ANC and, later, in government, he was subject to the whims of the president, but that’s not how he played it. He was on board with Zuma as a leader, on board with the NDP as a plan of action and on board with the ANC as the vehicle capable of delivering on it. And, of course, he was going to play a leadership role in delivering it all.

“A very strong president”, “I am going to play a key role”, “It is doable”, “I know it is going to happen”, “I believe we can do it”, “We are on the point of implementation”, “Watch this space”, “This country is on the move”. That is what Cyril Ramaphosa told South Africa five years ago. So, how has it all gone?

The NDP has been long forgotten, sidelined, maligned and now assigned to the policy scrap heap, superseded by its demagogic and indefinable alternative, radical economic transformation. The ANC is now not just miles from “the cusp” of implementation but it can no longer say what it is going to implement in the first place.

People like Trevor Manuel and Motlanthe have also been alienated, to the extent that Manuel now says of Zuma, “He is corrupt and demonstrated himself incapable of leading the nation.” Motlanthe has said he no longer thinks he can even bring himself to vote for the ANC.

The decade of the cadre has so far come to naught. Five years into it and “decade of the corrupt” is a far better description. Service delivery protests and the violence that accompanies them have escalated, and ANC leaders, if anything, have distanced themselves from the people, self-serving and inept. The “trust” Ramaphosa spoke of has been so eroded he might as well have said “rust”.

The party’s collective IQ and EQ have been decimated. Corruption and maladministration are now endemic.

As for things such as the ANC’s integrity commission, we have watched that space. We continue to watch. The only thing we can agree on is that it remains a space.

The tree of unity is a skeletal wreck, the kind of thing you see on the horizon of a desert landscape. Replete with vultures on every branch. President Zuma is to unity what pool acid is to fertiliser. It is not known whether the ANC will ever recover from his “watering”.

Unemployment continues to escalate as a crisis. The economic growth forecast has just been lowered to 0.5%. Credit ratings agencies continue to hold the South African economy in contempt. State-owned enterprises are so compromised they can barely function. The state is about as “capable” of delivering as an igloo is of roasting a chicken.

The tree of unity is a skeletal wreck, the kind of thing you see on the horizon of a desert landscape

The private sector is almost totally alienated. Proposed legislation such as the Mining Charter has done much to consolidate that detachment. None of the obstacles to investment have been removed. If anything, they have been increased.

The gulf between the promises Ramaphosa made and what the ANC delivered since 2012 is monumental. And yet, for all that, the country’s goldfish memory ensures Ramathusiasm is now rife again, and it is set to play out in exactly the same way it did in 2012. A saviour, there to renew an organisation destroyed by self-interest. But of his supposedly virtuous impact on the South African condition, there is no evidence.

Ramaphosa caught a bolt of lightning in 1994. Defeated by Thabo Mbeki, he cursed the day he let it go. But the Phoenix was reborn in 2012. The future is always above him but in the past he’s slow and sinking. In the final analysis, some words when spoken can’t be taken back. Once divided, there is nothing left to subtract.

The result of it all: a nothingman. He promises everything. But delivers nothing.

Cyril Ramaphosa is a man without conviction. He exists as an ANC presidential candidate because the blind enthusiasm that so many of those emotionally invested in the ANC exude means they see in him only what they want to see. His track record as ANC deputy president and deputy president of the country is disgraceful, held up to his own promises and beliefs. It matters not.

Such is the need to believe. Ramaphosa knows it. And so the taps are open once again and Ramathusiasts are drinking their fill.